


Maximum Yearn

by The Author (Yours_The_Author)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Handplates (Undertale), Coffee, Emmibee, Emmibee x Gaster, F/M, Fluff, OBMP AU, Off Brand Mercyplates AU, One Sort-of Homestuck Reference, One Sort-of Spongebob Reference, References to AU Canon, Scientist W. D. Gaster, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Snowdin (Undertale), Tea, emster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24918031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yours_The_Author/pseuds/The%20Author
Summary: One fine Snowdin morning, Emmibee is sitting with Gaster, drinking tea and coffee respectively before Gaster has to leave for "work". Emmi can sense that Gaster's mind is running a million miles a minute, and asks him to tell her what's up. Their relationship is slowly kicking into gear... but first, they must yearn.
Relationships: W. D. Gaster/Original Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Maximum Yearn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmmiBee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmiBee/gifts).



> FIRST AND FOREMOST:  
> UNDERTALE BELONGS TO TOBY FOX  
> THE HANDPLATES AU BELONGS TO ZARLA (zarla – s . tumblr . com)  
> OBMP (OFF BRAND MERCY PLATES) BELONGS TO EMMIBEE (emmibeestuff . carrd . co) (offbrandmercyplates . tumblr . com)  
> REMOVE SPACES IN BETWEEN THE WORDS TO GET THEIR WEB ADDRESSES!  
> THANK YOU!  
> Ms. Emmibee: I’m tired and my back hurts.  
> Me: Hmm, I can’t as of yet teleport over-the-counter pain medicine and soft things to unknown locations with my mind. How can I help?  
> Me: Wait.  
> Me: There is a soft thing I can sort of teleport.  
> And here it is!  
> Sooo, I’ve been on a bit of a lazy streak this past week or so, so I figured I should actually do something productive, and what better way to be productive than to make a gift for someone? Thus, this is here.  
> I’ll also be posting this to my fanfiction account… AND my brand-new Archive Of Our Own account! Yeah, I finally did the thing and got an account. If I can figure out how to post the story right, then it’ll definitely be up today! Thanks once more plus infinity to Emmibee to inviting me and letting me write and post these and just generally being a really cool person!  
> See you at the bottom of the page

“Something on your mind, Dr. Gaster?” Emmibee asked the skeleton sitting across from her. He had been alternating between sneaking glances at her and staring intently into his coffee cup ever since she had sat down at the kitchen table that morning. Clearly, he was thinking hard about something, but what?

It took him a second to register what she had said, and he blinked his good eye socket at her. “There is always something on my mind,” he said simply. “My mind is a fascinating puzzle that I continue to improve on a daily basis with my incredible skills and accomplishments.”

“That, you do,” Emmi said with a light laugh.

He raised a bone brow at her. “I was being serious.”

“I know.”

He continued to look at her for a moment, at first with a bit of a hard expression, but slowly, it began to soften to one of neutral content. His two-second stare became a four-second stare, and Emmi turned her attention to her tea cup. She sipped the golden flower tea Asgore had gifted her on her first day in the Underground. The flavor was wonderful, a little like a sweet and floral oolong with natural hints of cream and honey.

She could still feel the doctor’s gaze on her. She wasn’t sure how one could “feel” a gaze without seeing it, but it felt… calculating, but not cold. Analytical, yet anticipatingly fascinated. Yes, anticipation. That was the emotion she could feel from him. A hint of apprehension and nervousness, all hiding an eagerness to learn, to expand. _What a way with words I have this morning,_ she thought to herself. _I’d better get to the bottom of why he’s looking at me before I write a whole creative essay._

She had just raised her gaze and opened her mouth when Gaster beat her to the chase. “There is something I must do.”

She cocked her head at him. “ _Must_ do?” He hummed in agreement. “And what might that be?”

He set his elbow on the table and raised his hand, the palm (or lack thereof) facing her. “Hold your hand like this.”

Slowly, she copied his position. “Why?”

“No questions.” He proceeded to stare at her hand for another couple of seconds. Emmi watched his eye socket shift slightly from side to side, taking in the sight. She wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this. Sure, Gaster could be a bit… odd, for lack of a better word, but he usually had a reason for what he did, even if his logic was just as odd as he was (again, for lack of a better word).

What could this be about? She ran through the possibilities: maybe he was trying to tell if her body was real or some sort of illusion created by her human SOUL? Or maybe he was trying to see if she had a nervous tic of some kind, so he’d know if she was feeling one way or the other? Both seemed like they could be it, but they didn’t seem to match the emotion she felt from him. So what—?

Without warning, Gaster pressed his hand against Emmi’s, hard and suddenly enough to create a soft clapping sound, but not enough to hurt. She did jump a bit, though. A very tiny part of her mind wondered how his hand had made such a sound without a palm. The rest of her mind was thinking, “hand”.

Gaster was now staring at their pressed-together hands, and she looked as well. His hand was much larger; the tip of her longest finger just touched the top of the hole in his palm. He fingers were long and slender, which was probably good for dealing with delicate machinery. And it was so warm.

So warm and comforting, in fact, that she nearly missed what he said. “…just as I thought,” he was saying.

She leaned forward across the table, inadvertently pressing their hands closer together. “What do you mean?”

“It’s increasingly obvious,” he continued, seeming to ignore her. “We can deny it no longer.”

“What? What?!” The anticipation was going to set Emmi’s wings aflutter again.

He paused again. Then he turned to look at her, his teeth quirking into what, on anyone else, would have barely qualified as a smile, but on him was the visual definition of “goofy”. “You are small.”

…

“PFFT-HA-HA-HA-HA _-HA_ -HA-HA-HA!” She locked her fingers with his in an effort to keep herself from falling face-first onto the table and out of her chair.

“I’m perfectly serious,” Gaster said. His teeth quirked a little more, sending her into another series of loud guffaws. “Honestly, you can be so strange. Why in the world would you be laughing?”

Emmi wheezed. She probably would have kept on going for an hour, had she not felt something press against the back of her hand between her fingers. She looked up and saw that Dr. Gaster had also locked his fingers with hers. Their hands were now clasped. They were holding hands. _We’re doing this, man,_ Emmi thought, _we’re making this happen._ In all honesty, if she could just have a single minute of this, every day, for the rest of her life, then deciding to come to this world was already more than worth it. And it could only go uphill from here.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to last. Gaster blinked suddenly and pulled his hand away, staring at her in a way she couldn’t describe. Definitely not that same, goofy warmth from before, though. _Someday, Gaster. Someday._

“I have work,” Gaster said sharply, standing up. He grabbed his coffee mug and stared at it. “It’s cold,” he stated. He then downed the coffee in one gulp. “It was cold.”

“Shame.”

Gaster hurried around the kitchen, shoving his arms into his lab coat and slinging his work bag over his shoulder. Emmi watched him scurry, still in a good mood despite the hand holding being cut short. “I think I’ll spend the day at the Librarby,” she said nonchalantly.

“ _Library,_ ” Gaster corrected. “They made a mistake when painting the sign.”

“I know. So… can I, you know, do that?”

“Do what you will. Just don’t talk to anyone.”

“I’m not going to ignore someone if they say ‘hello’, Dr. Gaster.”

He gave her a look before sighing in defeat. “ _Only_ talk to someone if they engage first.”

Emmi grinned at him. “Thanks, Dr. Gaster.”

His free hand practically flew to adjust his glasses, and he seemed a bit too distracted to notice at the moment. “Mm. I’ll pick you up when I get back from… work.”

 _“Say ‘hi’ to the boys for me,”_ she wanted to say, but figured that would just redact everything that happened just now. Instead, she said, “okay. Bye, doctor.”

He hummed in acknowledgement and hurried out the door, slamming it behind him out of a need for speed rather than a need to express intense emotion.

Emmi settled into the quiet of the house for a moment, then looked at her tea. “It’s probably cold,” she said aloud. She drank the tea in one gulp. “It was cold.”

After putting the cups in the sink, she grabbed an energy bar out of the fridge and put on her coat. Time to read up on monster history to impress a certain skele-man.

**Author's Note:**

> When does this take place? I imagine maybe a week or two after Emmi has settled into Snowdin with Gaster. Long enough that there’s something of a routine in place, soon enough that Emmi still has some golden flower tea from Asgore, and before Emmi officially meets the boys. Who knows how long it’ll take to get there; it’ll be worth the wait, though!  
> According to this site I found called Adiago Teas, golden flower tea is a kind of oolong with hints of honeysuckle, “Osmanthus” (which is a flower apparently found on the “devilwood” tree), and a subtle creaminess. I’m not sure what kind of tea Emmibee would like, and I don’t even know if this would count as the same kind of golden flower tea Asgore makes, but she wasn’t complaining during chapter one, so I imagine she’s good with sweet teas. (After some further research, it turns out Adiago also does “fandom” teas, including a series for Undertale! However, the teas are based on characters, and none of them are a straight up “golden flower” tea. Though Flowey’s does have gunpowder. Blow up a cardboard box with it.)  
> Does this seem to friendly for Gaster? Keep in mind that he has his own logic to these sorts of things, and was probably trying to see what would happen when he put his hand to Emmi’s. Also, I imagine he was sleep deprived (suddenly having someone in your home can wreck your sleep schedule), was thinking about it since she showed up, and also touch-starved. Disguising hand holding as a miniature “experiment” is the perfect way to keep yourself from thinking you have emotional needs!  
> A part of me wondered if Emmi’s hand would accidentally go through Gaster’s hand hole, but I figured that would ruin the mood, so that’s a mystery for another day.  
> I saw an Undertale animatic a few days ago that just put Spongebob quotes over Undertale characters, and Flowey was Plankton, and he said what Gaster says here. Like all children growing up before you could buy all of the seasons of a TV show at once on DVD, I never saw all of the episodes or even seasons; just whatever happened to be playing on the TV when I was in a place that had cable, like not my house. I missed this quote, and I am sad. I figured I should have Gaster say this, because, soft humor.  
> Speaking of quotes, there’s no real reason for the Homestuck quote I had Emmi think; I just like references. I also made the quote more grammatically correct, because I like grammar. There’s not much else to say on the matter.  
> Cold coffee and cold tea. Not the most enjoyable, but apparently perfectly viable. I’m not much of a tea or coffee fan in real life (hot cocoa all the way!), but I personally don’t mind downing cold hot chocolate all that much; it’s easier to gulp down and you can taste it without worrying about burning your tongue. Cold drinking chocolate, though, iS DIFFERENT AND IS DELICIOUS AND I’VE HAD IT ONCE AND I WANT SOME BUT THE ONLY PLACE I KNOW OF THAT HAS SOME IS IN A DIFFERENT TOWN AND ALSO I HAVE NO MONEY/TRANSPORT.  
> So… yeah, that’s everything! I have to go eat dinner now, but as soon as that’s done, I’ll get to posting these things on my other sites! Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom! See you around!


End file.
